50 hours of fighting plus 30 hours of dialog equals Agarest: Generations of War Zero. If you are a fan of JRPGs and round-based strategy-RPGs, you will surely enjoy this game, otherwise, the gameplay feels too repetitive and monotonous. The character designs are amazing, the remaining graphics are reminiscent of old SNES RPGs but look too dated. Just a solid strategy-RPG with a lot of Anime influence.

Zero could easily be seen as a reimagining of the first game...only the developers really held back on the "imagining" part, leaving us basically the same game with minor improvements. [July 2011, p.86]

Do you love to be tortured by electronic software? Do you love to have to spend near 100 hours to beat a bland story across repetitiveDo you love to be tortured by electronic software? Do you love to have to spend near 100 hours to beat a bland story across repetitive backdrops? Or would you be thrilled if I told you it only costs about double the game itself (Â£40) to buy enough DLC to cut out the mindless grinding? If you're answer to all of that is no you may wonder why I would stick an 8 onto such a game, and its because, frankly, despite blatantly being built to rip you off with DLC or soak up 100 hours of you're time to accomplish very little, this is one fantastic strategy JRPG. I've allready got most of the bad out of the way but theres a few more bad points I'd like to warn you of, namely this game is very half-hearted-ly made, in that enemies/sprite/environments/sound effects/special effects by and large come from other IF games like Cross Edge and Trinity Universe, I can't imagine it took more than 2 months to patch this game together. However A Zero can get away with that based on a brilliant combat system, amongst other things. Battles take place on a grid and you can have 6 members in battle at any one time, its a lot like Fire emblem, only (dare I say it) better. You can excecute combos by placing party members in certain possitions in relation to each other, and you can further add to the skill element by selecting a map that suits you. For example you can choose a map with areas that increase you're attack power, especially usefull against enemies reliant on magic, you also have an SP guage which adds even MORE depth to the battle system allowing you to use extra powerfull attacks if that party member has taken a lot of hits (not damage but sperate hits) or has defeated some foes. Ofcourse this wouldn't be an IF game without insanely hard boss battles, which are brilliantly designed and will even challenge the most seasoned JRPG vet EVEN if you bought all the DLC the last few bosses will give you a run for you're money (quite literaly) Ofcourse battling waves of tough enemies and numerous brutal bosses could be stressful so A Zero attempts to relieve you're aching trigger fingures with laid back activities, from getting to know some very beautiful women that bit better (and earning the right to see them in more revealing... ahem interesting costumes) to the good old IF beach and hot spring scenes. Its not just pretty ladies ofcourse that will aid you through tough battles, although there is another way they aid you (more on that soon) as you can also do the industry standard of capturing monsters and having them fight for you, aswell as being able to combine them together to make all sorts of beings, you can also synthesise new items, inhance existing weaponry, earn titles (such as to win 100 battles or have a certain number of rare itmes) and enjoy vacation days where you can just chill and talk to your favourite characters. A Zero only has 2 generations, which for those of you new to Agarest (like I was) is a system where you choose one of 3 girls to have a child with (it doesn't show you how ofcourse) and that child becomes you're new main character for the second part of the game, the girl you pick affects various things from you're new characters appearance to his stats (the more the girl likes you the better they'll be) I also mentioned DLC (and bashed it) early on for one good reason, its really expensive but without it this game can last 100s of hours, especially considering there is A LOT of post game content, possibly more than the story itself aswell as new game plus with an even more brutal difficulty. To make life easy you will want at least Â£15/$25 to shorten the game, in all fairness its a cheep game in the first place, but the 2 PP packs plus a weapon pack will shave off 50 hours from the story, and save you from grindng AT ALL (just) Some DLC is ridiculously overpriced though but completely unecessary such as to unlock character voice samples. On a technical level Agarest Zero doesn't fair to badly, the graphics, although simple, are actually rather nice with high res textures and art aswell as adorable sprites, the music is great and very fitting and up beat and the loading times rather short. One last note there is no English dub, subs yes but no voice over, but you do get an excellent cast of Japanese voice actresses/actors to listen to. Long story short, this is a fantastic game despite obvious shortcomings and its well worth buying just to experience a genius battle system and to really challenge yourself.…Expand

Well have you watched anime? Have you watched a lot, because if you have then you will recognize the story and characters for what they are,Well have you watched anime? Have you watched a lot, because if you have then you will recognize the story and characters for what they are, generic. As a primary story loving guy playing this game becomes difficult because everyone feels like a generic person from a generic anime you stop watching. Combat is what this game does best but it's also very hard. While I don't mind difficultly with the story bland as it is I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of it. The battles or more like animated chess than turned based beat the crap out of foes. But this is a long game and battles can get tiring when it's the only dynamic thing that happens. More so when having teams mates get killed rather often so you'll be spending money a lot which like in Tales Of The Abyss is really tight. Then we have the relationship faction every now and then you get a choice and it effects in ways that don't make a lot of sense. Such as: deciding to use your teammates ability to see the future so you know that walking into the forest won't get you killed, suddenly you feel less affectionate with someone. And during the times where you roam around towns you don't really learn much maybe you'll get a sentence or two. While I enjoy the battles it's all there really is, okay there is a second generation thing where you get child and he continues to save the world but once again the story being as dull and generic I just don't care. Music isn't all that good ether. The world map is also just a string of dots and anything that isn't a town is pretty much a chess battle. Even the quick battles can feel drawn out. It has it's moments but I feel it's a game that requires a lot of work for little payoff.…Expand

I wanted to go into this game right off the bat liking it, but sadly that was not the case. My PS3 had trouble playing this specific game atI wanted to go into this game right off the bat liking it, but sadly that was not the case. My PS3 had trouble playing this specific game at first. After getting it to work the game-play on the battles just felt bad. The only thing I truly liked about this game was the pictures and the Seiyuu's casted for almost all the characters. I don't fully suggest this game unless you can pick it up used for a good price. Just part of the collection.…Expand

This game sucks, theres nothing good to say about it, the graphics are cell-shade and they are really bad, nothing really interesting orThis game sucks, theres nothing good to say about it, the graphics are cell-shade and they are really bad, nothing really interesting or innovative, battle system is a generic strategy RPG so it's incredibly slow. I'm sorry but I don't like Japanese voice actors because well I can't speak Japanese - sure English subtitles is great but it makes me feel like the developer is lazy. Story sucks I got through the first generation in 20 hours or so was nothing interesting. Over all this is just a really bad game. It's no where near as good as other strategy RPG's like Disgaea.…Collapse